Category: Євросоюз

Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit by imprisoned opposition leader Alexey Navalny contesting prison regulations that allow prison officials to deprive him of stationery and pens.  Navalny is serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of court in a maximum security penal colony in Melekhovo 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Moscow. This week, another trial against the Kremlin’s archfoe began right there in the penal colony on charges of extremism. If convicted, Navalny will remain behind bars for at least two more decades.  In the lawsuit considered by the Supreme Court on Thursday, Navalny complained that …

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The World Bank chief will announce a raft of measures on Thursday to aid countries hit by natural disasters, including a pause in debt repayments to the lender, as world leaders gather in Paris to give impetus to a new global finance agenda. Some 40 leaders, including about a dozen from Africa, China’s prime minister and Brazil’s president, will be joined in the French capital by international organizations at the “Summit for a New Global Financial Pact.” It aims to boost crisis financing for low-income countries, reform post-war financial systems and free up funds to tackle climate change by getting …

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Six people remained in a critical condition and one person was believed still missing on Thursday, one day after a blast ripped through a street near Paris’ historic Latin Quarter, the city’s public prosecution office said. “These figures may still change,” prosecutor Maylis De Roeck told Reuters in a text message, adding that around 50 people had been injured in the blast, which set buildings ablaze and caused the front of one to collapse onto the street. Of two people initially believed missing, one has been found in hospital and is being taken care of, the prosecutor said, adding: “Searches …

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More than 30 migrants were feared dead after a small boat headed for Spain’s Canary Islands sank Wednesday, two migration-focused organizations said, as they criticized Spain and Morocco for not intervening earlier to rescue the vessel’s passengers. The groups, Walking Borders and Alarm Phone, said the boat held around 60 people. Spain’s maritime rescue service confirmed the deaths of two of the dinghy’s occupants, a child and an adult man, and said a Moroccan patrol boat had rescued 24 people. Neither Spanish nor Moroccan authorities would confirm how many people had been on board the vessel or how many might …

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Last week’s migrant boat accident in the Mediterranean Sea near Greece has sent shock waves through Pakistan, home to almost 300 passengers of the overcrowded fishing vessel. VOA’s Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman met with some parents waiting to learn the fate of their missing children. …

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The daughter of a German Iranian citizen sentenced to death in Iran has asked authorities in Germany to open criminal proceedings against members of the Iranian judiciary.  The family of Jamshid Sharmahd says he was abducted by Iran while staying in Dubai three years ago. Iranian authorities accused him of planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people and wounded more than 200 others. He was sentenced to death earlier this year.  German and European diplomats have condemned the verdict, which comes amid an increase in executions by Iran.  Germany follows the principle of universal jurisdiction, under …

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Turkey’s LGBT+ movement is celebrating pride this week in Istanbul, but authorities are cracking down on any public displays as newly reelected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses the movement of posing a threat to Turkish society. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul. …

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Ukraine is about two weeks into a major push to retake areas occupied by Russia for more than a year. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from the edges of the combat zone in the Volnovakha region, where soldiers and locals say the fighting is brutal and slow against an enemy that is heavily fortified for battle. …

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Latest Developments: U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls on Black Sea Grain Initiative parties to “accelerate operations” after slowdown in ship inspections. British defense ministry says Russia has expended “significant effort” in recent weeks to build defensive lines, particularly on the approaches to Russian-occupied Crimea. Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday its air defenses shot down three drones in the Moscow area. Russia said the drones were part of a Ukrainian attack, and that two of the drones were intercepted as they approached military warehouses. Ukraine rarely comments on attacks within Russia. Ukraine’s military said it downed six Iranian-made Shahed drones over …

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Greece is under growing pressure to launch an independent investigation into the June 13 sinking of a vessel that was carrying up to 750 migrants, amid accusations from survivors that the actions of the Greek coast guard came too late and may have contributed to the shipwreck.  Greek authorities strongly deny the claim. In one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks in recent years, at least 82 people are confirmed to have died and hundreds are still missing, including many women and children. Most were from Egypt, Syria, and Pakistan.  Timeline The fishing trawler set sail from Libya with up to …

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Off the top of his head, Piotr Stasinski doesn’t know how many lawsuits his newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, has faced over the years. After some thought, the longtime editor at the Polish daily told VOA the number is around 100 since the conservative Law and Justice Party came to power in 2015. About one-third of those cases are still active, he estimates, adding that he believes they are designed to silence the newspaper and its critical coverage. But Gazeta Wyborcza is not alone.   “There is an avalanche of lawsuits against independent media,” Stasinski told VOA, as he spoke about the …

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Britain and Ukraine are co-hosting a two-day conference to rally support for Ukraine’s rebuilding and recovery from the Russian invasion that began early last year.  The conference Wednesday and Thursday in London is bringing together leaders from 60 nations as well as officials from the private sector.    Britain said specific areas of focus included technology, logistics, green energy, agriculture, health and infrastructure.   British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office announced $3 billion in World Bank loan guarantees as part of a new financial support package for Ukraine that will help support public services such as hospitals and schools.  “The question for …

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The U.N. says that among 8 million refugees who have fled the war in Ukraine, 90% are women and children. With martial law prohibiting most men from leaving the country, many of Ukraine’s women who go abroad have no choice but to take care of their families alone. As part of VOA World Refugee Day coverage, Warsaw reporter Lesia Bakalets heard from some of the women who have taken refuge in Poland. VOA footage by Daniil Batushchak. …

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Albanian police on Tuesday raided a camp home to members of an Iranian opposition movement, with local media reporting that the group is suspected of orchestrating cyberattacks against foreign institutions.  The Ashraf-3 camp northwest of Tirana has been home for a decade to thousands of members of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), exiled opponents of the government in Tehran.  Police said in a statement they had acted on the orders of the Albanian judiciary due to the “violation of agreements and commitments” made by the group “when they settled in Albania solely for humanitarian purposes.”  Local media reported …

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An unprecedented global canvassing of Catholics has called for the church to take concrete steps to promote women to decision-making roles, for a “radical inclusion” of the LGBTQ+ community and for new accountability measures to check how bishops exercise authority. The Vatican on Tuesday released the synthesis of a two-year consultation process, publishing a working document that will form the basis of discussion for a big meeting of bishops and laypeople in October. The synod, as it is known, is a key priority of Pope Francis, reflecting his vision of a church that is more about the faithful rank-and-file than …

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A search is underway for a deep-sea vessel that went missing with five people aboard after it dived toward the deteriorating wreck site of the Titanic Ocean liner. The U.S. Coast Guard is leading the search for the small craft, named Titan, in the North Atlantic Ocean. The remote area is where the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew. This was OceanGate Expeditions’ third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of Titanic since 2021. The sunken ship is about 3.8 kilometers below the surface.  The undersea …

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Romanian prosecutors sent divisive internet personality Andrew Tate, his brother Tristan and two other suspects to trial on Tuesday on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. The Tate brothers and two Romanian female suspects are under house arrest pending a criminal investigation for abuses committed against seven women, accusations they have denied. The four were held in police custody from Dec. 29 until March 31 before a Bucharest court put them under house arrest. Andrew Tate has also been charged with raping one of the victims, while his brother Tristan has been …

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Chinese imports of Russian oil last month hit their highest level since Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Beijing’s customs data showed Tuesday. China imported 9.71 million tons of oil from Russia in May, detailed customs data showed, up from 5.4 million tons in February 2022 and 6.3 million the following month. The figures show that imports of Russian crude by China since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine have almost doubled. They are in line with trade figures released this month that showed China’s trade with Russia soaring to levels not seen since February 2022. Trade between the two countries last …

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U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken traveled Tuesday to London where he is due to meet with his British and Ukrainian counterparts ahead of a conference focused on fostering international support for helping Ukraine recover from the effects of a Russian invasion.  Britain and Ukraine are co-hosting the conference taking place Wednesday and Thursday.  Blinken and British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly are scheduled to take part in an event for World Refugee Day at a center set up to help Ukrainians who fled the war get the advice and support they need to adapt to life in Britain.  After bilateral talks with …

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In her years running Catholic youth programs in France, Sister Nathalie Becquart often invoked her own experience as a seasoned sailor in urging young people to weather the storms of their lives. “There’s nothing stronger than seeing the sunrise after a storm, the flat calm of the sea,” she said. That lesson is especially applicable to Becquart herself as she charts the global church through an unprecedented — and at times, tempestuous — period of reform as one of the highest-ranking women at the Vatican. Pope Francis named the 54-year-old nun as the first female undersecretary in the Vatican’s Synod …

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